Wednesday, November 4, 2009

I now officially own the title of IDIOT

Oh yeah, riiiight...faction standings.

OK, from time to time we all do something extremely stupid. Been a while for me, but today takes first prize in my EVE career.

The irony was that this entire adventure started with a return to a previously abandoned POS (read post). After coming to realize the very reason I abandoned said POS was the fact that no good C2-C4 systems EVER seem to spawn for me there, I had just finished unanchoring everything and transporting everything to a nearby LowSec exit station. I recovered more than 90M ISK worth of arrays and guns from the old haunt and stowed it in the station and then set course for Amarrian space, home of my staging base.

Old POS Note: Regrettably, two of the guns were incapacitated and I did not have the repping fittings to get them back to be able to unanchor, so the old POS still resides out there in J161138 where I long ago wrote-off the tower.

I figured my first run back to my staging system would be the Fuel, Strontium and Hangar I had just brought out to power up the old POS. Here is where I should have paused to recall that my Caldari character piloting the quite-expensively fit Itty V has a Gallente security rating of -7.5 (aka GTFO-IWILLPWNUHEREDONTTHINKOFSHOWINGYOURPODGOOCRUSTEDASS).

But noooooo... I am playing the part of an idiot today!

So here I am, all packed up in my Iteron Mark V, max-fitted with Cargo rigs, Expanders, etc. and filled with POS Fuel, Stront, Small (staging) POS, Corp Hanger and lots of other expensive goods.

Cool! I mutter, only 18 jumps! I avoid gankers in the 4 jumps through LowSec, but as soon as I jump into the next system, poof! I am CONCORDOKKENPWNED. I was toast the moment I hit Jump.

After all of this time in W-Space, I had forgotten that my Gallente status was criminal (from back in the early days when I used to mission run in Caldari).

An expensive lesson in not paying attention to your faction standings and flight path. Using my Gallente Alt I was able to recover the Hangar Array, half the Strontium (all in GSC's), and some fuel, but that little mistake cost me over 450M ISK.

I can take the hit, with billions of ISK in reserve and a full Large POS configuration procured and sitting in my staging hangar, but that really sucked.

I was taking a fully-rigged Mackinaw to Hulmate, our then staging area to get out to Fountain. Going from Kamio, I hit autopilot, as I wasn't carrying anything valuable. I went and made dinner.

Came back to find myself trundling merrily along in my fricking pod! The Gallente border patrol had totally nailed me. At least I went back, found the wreck and salvaged what I could. [EPIC FACEPALM]

Training up Diplo to 5 has allowed me to pass through their space safely now, but with -7.5, you'd have to work some pretty serious mojo to be allowed through in anything that's big and slow. I did find most ships could outrun border patrols, fortunately, but yeah - probably not itty v's.

unlucky. I have done it myself before but narrowly escaped. a friend of mine was not so lucky; he lost a badger with 2 bil worth of BPO's. He rage quit for 2 months then returned but it took him 5 months or so to get all of it back. See good in bad; it coulda been worse =)

Just thought I'd drop you a note after following your blog for quite some time.

First off, good to see you're back.

It's thanks to your writings that I ventured into a WH for my initial 2 week stay. I do plan to go back once I have some of my characters shortcomings sorted out. My DPS is terrible, as my main is drone orientated, and as you would be aware drones are little more than cannon fodder to be used as chaff to buy some cap regen and repair cycles.

I made a billion in 2 weeks, but most of that was from mining. I ran C3 radars with a main and an alt. They are substantially tougher than level 4 missions. My static exit was Nullsec with occasional holes originating about once a week from other C3's and Highsec. I had 3 visitors in 2 weeks!

One gentleman from an adjoining C3 left me his fully plated and MWD Domi, later telling me that both the ships they were using to close it wouldn't have fit back through. So 1 free Domi! Which was awesome as that meant I now had a spare, which actally got fitted as neut/tackle for my other 2 visitors. Let me tell you about these 2 jokers.

First I know of them, there's a hulk ninja mining my only grav site, literally taking ISK from my wallet. It was the first time I had ever fired with intent to kill on another player. I was shocked at how quickly he died to my Drake. His pod got away. Next time I'll use an Interceptor to lock him down. I retrieve my stolen Ark/Bistot. It's all quiet for a few hours, then D-scan lights up with a Scorpion and a Paladin. The Hulk pilot is back in the Scorp, and he brought a buddy. Now shooting a Hulk is one thing, but taking on a pair of Battleships when I have no replacements for mine (The gift Domi was afterwards) didn't sound like a good idea. I watch them from 100kms out running a Mag site, which was no big deal as I didn't have the skills to exploit the site anyway, and I hit the sack hoping they'll be gone tomorrow.

Next day I come back online and hit my safe spot and scan everything. The Highsec hole they came through is gone. However they are still there. My static Nullsec is still there. As is a fresh Nullsec. I warp to them at 100kms to see what the story is. They are idle near the highsec entrance. Then it dawns on me..they've got no scanning capability. They are stuck in here, and or not willing to take either of the Nullsec exits one of which is so deep into the Outer Passage, I don't think it was possible to get further away from highsec, the other is 12 jumps into Solitude, neither very appealing. I smell an opportunity to make them pay for an exit, and log out to think about how I'm going to deal with them.

D-scan next day shows 1 Caldari Battleship Wreck, 1 Frozen Corpse and a Paladin. I laugh so hard I cry. Do my obligatory probe work, and there's a new lowsec entrance. Hevrice, It's one jump to Highsec, I'm sure I can sell that location to the Paladin Pilot for a hefty sum. I figure total for his ship and fittings would be in the area of 1.5-2B including the loot he's stolen from my system. I convo him offering an exit within 1 jump of highsec for 500M, feeling pretty confident he's going to jump at it. Only reason I'm offering this and not just trying to kill him is because I'm not at all confident I can take him out. He declines my offer, crying poverty.

I hit Hevrice and go shopping for a full rack of Neuts, scrams, web, and 3 ECM, and then the skills to actually use them on my free Domi which was delivered in the middle of all this....Mr Bozo Paladin has 4 days to live. The plan is to scan him out, change ships and drop the Domi on him tackling and neuting like mad and bringing the raven alt in at 100kms and pound him for as long as the Domi can hold. Sounds like a solid plan to me.

I watch him for 3 days blinking in and out of D-scan and my addressbook, I'm almost ready to go skillwise. I log back in some 18 hours later with 10 minutes to go on skills. He's online. Not on D-Scan, and I'm not getting any hits with probes. There's no wrecks, no corpse. He's gone.

I'd like to think he's taken the same way out as his buddy in the Scorp, I don't know how long Corpses hang around before despawning, maybe the other guys from the linked C3 let him out, I'll never know.

Don't beat yourself up. I did the same thing (but faction polic) in the same week. Exited w-space after 3 a month and started to clean up ore and ships that were spread all over the place using my Orca. RL issues distracted me and I entered Caldari space (at the time -6.40 standing). Needless to say, by the time I realized, I had been webbed multiple times and was 12km off gate. The Orca died with full small POS setup in the Corp hangar, a large amount of fittings and my Anathema in the bay. I watched the pirates slowly run off with what was left, but luckily one of my corp mates responded in time to save the packages Zealot in cargo.

Was good to chat with you last night Khalia - keep in touch and let me know how your own C3 search concludes...

Anon - yeah, sounds like this happens more often than I thought. Some good Blog Pack posts about it as well, including some angles on generating a warp warning dialog. That would be nice, but I am not going to get on that bandwagon, as I am not a fan of trying to fix my blunders with CCP change requests. Sucks to lose that Orca though. I guess we all live and learn...